Saturday, April 24, 2010

Press Snippets: Media Exaggerates Claims

As official sources from Tarkan's camp contact Tarkan Deluxe to reassure fans that recent news stories surrounding a jail term for the artist are grossly exaggerated, the domestic and international press are still continuing to run with the story that Tarkan will be brought up before an Istanbul court on charges of drug possession (see left pic).

The news that Tarkan might face a jail term for drug charges was released by Turkish news agencies two days ago, and continues to garner interest from serious newspapers as well as the variety sections.

In the Netherlands, the largest Dutch daily newspaper, Amsterdam based De Telegraaf ("The Telegraph") has run with the news in its gossip-magazine Privé ("Private"), while global news agency AFP for Germany has also run the reports from the Turkish news wires.

And as Romanian news site Cotidianul informs its readers of Tarkan's jail time possibilities, reputable Turkish left-wing paper Radikal has also trusted the reports enough to reprint in their pages, too, adding that the indictment also asks for the confiscation of Tarkan's driving licence.

Last Thursday, Turkish news agencies had published Turkish state prosecutors were looking to charge Tarkan on an indictment that accuses the singer of "buying, accepting or having drugs for use", attaching a request for a jail term between one and two years.

Reports write that Istanbul state prosecutor Emin Ateşağaoğlu added Tarkan's name to a drug indictment along with 16 other suspects, which if accepted by a judge will see the singer tried in one of the city's highest courts of law.

The news had spread across the whole spectrum of the Turkish media, and leaked out to make the headlines in the European press, while reports filtering across Russian news sites rise daily (see left pic).

Tarkan had been taken into custody by police last month for questioning after a six month anti-drug operation, and had been released on bail after his name was reportedly found on the lists of arrested drug dealers.

In a new piece prepared by Today's Zaman following the jail term claims, the article details how Istanbul narcotics officers had seized notebooks from a number of dealers during the course of an ongoing narcotics investigation and found many names and addresses, in a crackdown on drug dealers in the city.

The police obtained search warrants and raided the addresses listed, which reportedly included Tarkan's villa in the Ömerli district, where it's claimed 12.5 grams of cannabis were seized.

Meanwhile, Tarkan's official sources ask Tarkan Deluxe to relay that an official statement will be made soon, and a new official website is currently being designed, with plans to have a new album out for this summer still going ahead.